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But I’ve always been intrigued by the so-called ‘secret’ surf spots of Cornwall. That game of stealth that surfers play to get the ultimate wave to themselves - parking in bushes, hotfooting it down the path the beach, looking behind them to check no one noticed the massive great board under their arm, not even telling their best mates, or perhaps just swearing one or two friends to silence.

Surfing in Cornwall (Image: Ben Landricombe)

A couple of years ago, we published in Cornwall Today magazine a list of the top five waves in Cornwall. The writer would only refer to the fifth as west Cornwall’s ‘G spot’. Even then I figured everyone must know where the G spot was – why on earth did we have to keep up this charade of protecting its identity? But he insisted he’d be lynched if he named it.

Since then, I’ve heard numerous stories of threats made by surfers over their favourite breaks and when I’ve even dared mention to our photographer that we could list of few of the lesser known surf spots in Cornwall, he’s completely recoiled at the idea.

This week, the surf protectionism stepped up a gear when an amateur photographer was not only threatened but had his tyres slashed and the words ‘surf snitch’ graffitied across his van because he’d taken a few pictures of a rare wave off Plymouth Sound.

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I do get it. The frustration of a once little-known wave that’s now become overcrowded. The annoyance of having to fight through hoardes of wetsuited tourists in the summer just to get a decent break. And the exasperation of knowing that there’s only a handful of decent waves on any given day and they could all be teeming with people because they’ve all been outed on social media.

We all love it when we get the beach to ourselves in winter. We all have our ‘secret’ beaches where it’s just amazing to take a picnic in summer and not be surrounded by windbreaks, cheap polystyrene bodyboards, wobbly sunburnt thighs and Union Jack boardies.

Hundreds of cheap polystyrene bodyboards discarded by holidaymakers on Cornwall beaches which were collected by Beach Care volunteers in 2017. Could they be recycled back into making more durable and more environmentally-friendly surfing equipment? (Image: Beach Care)

But it’s a massive overreaction to start threatening people for taking pictures of waves.

Surely the internet has pretty much killed the secret surf spot anyway? Social media makes it pretty much impossible to keep a good spot under wraps these days. And even if a rare wave is outed, it takes a pretty detailed level of knowledge to work out the wind direction, speeds and swell that might make that particular wave work again in future. And it often takes a high level of skill to even be able to surf a decent break when there’s few people around.

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Surfing is an integral part of Cornwall. It makes a huge contribution to our lifestyle and culture and economy and it’s a major draw for tourism. According to an economic impact assessment by campaign group Surfers Against Sewage in 2013, there are around 87,000 surfers in Cornwall.

If all those 87,000 surfers ended up on the same wave (and it may feel a bit like that at Fistral in summer), it would be a problem, but the reality is the reason it’s so popular here is because we have a coastline of more than 400 miles and a plethora of excellent surf breaks.

Surely surfers should be directing their energies into preserving our coastlines, keeping our beaches clean and ridding the seas of plastic and pollution? Not getting furious over whether or not a few emmets might join them on a wave that they hoped to get to themselves.